Its probably been asked before, but how do I get them to quit.........

[Mommi3130]

breaking my eggs. Like today I should have had 6 eggs, I went out to collect them and 4 of them were broke in half and ate. 1 of them is cracked and the other one is fine. This is not just a today occurence almost everyday we have at least a few broke

HELP!?!?!

 

[b.hromada]

Sounds like you have some egg eaters there. Someone will tell you how to break them of this. I have not had that problem myself, thank God, but its on here quite a lot. Hope it all works out, and you get them to stop eating your eggs.

 

[Mommi3130]

I hope so, I swear its devasting losing all these eggs

 

[b.hromada]

I can imagine, I wouldn't be happy about it either. Someone will chime in here soon.

 

[MommaHen23]

The only ways I know how to get them to stop, is to

A) Feed them too much food, so they aren't hungry for that or feed them better treats. and
B) get to the eggs before they do.

Hope this helps!!

 

[Chicky Tocks]

Sounds like someone's a little bitter about paying teh rent! I'd look over all the chickens to find the one with egg on it's face. Yolk tends to stick. You can try no peck peepers if you find the offending culprit. Otherwise you'll need to arrange for some roll away nest boxes where the egg rolls down into a chute after it's laid.

 

[Katy]

It is very difficult to stop them once they get a taste for it. Sometimes they start doing it because they're lacking calcium, but more often it's because originally an egg was broken and they ate it and liked it.....now they actively go after them. If you can pinpoint which one is doing it I'd recommend culling her.

 

[henryetta]

i dont know how to get them to stop, but i do know there are a number of nesting ideas that will 'save the eggs'. One is with a slight slant where when they drop the egg, it gently rolls to an area where they cant get too it. Wish i had a picture, but i do know it works as a friend had egg eaters and had one built (simple) and solved her prob.

 

[TXmom]

How often do you collect the eggs? Are you home during the day to collect often? I probably check for eggs 10 times a day...but then again, I just love to go out there and spend time with my animals

How long have they been laying, and how long have they been eating them. I understand it's a very hard habit to break...and they also learn it from watching others. So, if you start out with 1 egg eater, then others will watch and start doing it too.

I don't have an egg-eating problem, but one thing I did was put golf balls out in the nest boxes before they started laying. I let them look at the golf balls in my hands and let them peck at them. They obviously didn't get anything from it, so I never saw them peck at them again. Maybe you could try that....put out plenty of fake eggs or golf balls, and pick up the real ones ASAP after they're laid.

 

[Chirpy]

Yup, it sounds like an egg eater chicken for sure. You want to get it stopped as quickly as possible or others in your flock could learn from this behavior and you won't have any eggs for yourself. (I just had a friend go through this with her flock.)

The first thing I'd try is to blow out an egg (put a hole in each end... a thumb tack works good to do this) - blow out the insides. Take a syringe with no needle and put the hottest Tabasco sauce you can get into the egg. Fill it enough that there's quite a bit in there but it's not leaking out the little holes. Put the egg back where they lay their eggs everyday. Often, one time of breaking into that egg and the egg eating will completely stop (it did for me). If that doesn't stop it after several tries (in case you have more than one egg eater you may need to fill several eggs) then you need to figure out which chicken(s) are eating your eggs and cull them. This can be difficult and takes multiple trips to the hen house every day to actually catch the culprit or to check all beaks and find yolk on them.

Good luck... this is such a frustrating behavior.